Axel Rudakubana

[Dylanxoxo]

I haven't seen anything in articles I have read about Axel Rudakubana today about a mental health assessment. His behaviour is so extreme, that it is difficult not to suspect he is suffering from an untreated mental health condition. Does anyone else think that mental illness may be at the root of his horrific crimes?

There’s media reports that he called Childline a few times from of the age of 13 onwards to say he was being racially abused at school so he was carrying a knife to school.

m He was then referred to Mash as result (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub).

MASH would have then done SFA due to having too many cases and him not being an immediate threat.

Agreed, the repeated referrals to Mash from
2022 onwards seemed to bring no tangible results.

He did it because he wanted to.

Agree.

His parents are also responsible. He used the family living room as his bedroom. The space looks dirty and messy (pictures online) stacked with Amazon boxes. The parents knew about his hateful and dangerous behaviour but failed to check this room and were unaware of the knives, machetes and ricin stored in his bedroom? Right. The ricin could have killed 12000 people. He had manuals to prepare the poison and studied how to best use such weapons. If you know your son violent intentions as the dad did, why did he not ensure that there were no knives available to him in the house?

He is also reported to have had obsession with white genocide.

His parents are from war torn Rwanda and whether they were victims or perpetrators or a complex mix of both, they would have been deeply traumatised and affected for life. As a second-generation immigrant, I’ve seen how kids and grandkids of immigrants often struggle more than their parents. Balancing two cultures, being exposed to racism and carrying the weight of family history can be tough. So, anyone parroting but he was "born in Wales" is either naive or intentionally ignoring the bigger picture.

His parents carried the very recent trauma of genocide, and life at home must have been influenced by that brutal inhumane experience. The pain of his parents' past must have shaped their lives. [deleted edit fail]

AR is said to be autistic with high functions aspergers. He presumably was quite bright and perhaps violence, genocides, tyrannical systems and terrorist groups became his special interest. He was said to be a social recluse form a young age which is why his parents sent him to drama club and how he got to be on the BBC Children in Need video. He consumed the most depraved violent content online.

He most probably did experience racism, many students from migrant families sadly do but the majority do not then murder innocent people in retaliation. Based on what is reported AR is a person who retaliates when he is wronged and that is why he beat up a fellow young pupil with a hockey stick. Feeling sorry for himself he hurts others to feel powerful and in control, he even told the police he was glad the girls were dead. He stabbed a 6 year old 120 times. In a frenzy. He is not schizophrenic and has not diminished responsibility due to mental illness.

He is simply and evil human being. We don't know know if it's nature or nurture, probably both. What does evil mean in this context? One that is out to harm others because he wants to and who has no moral scruple or innate empathy. Evil.

Prevent should be updated to target individuals who consume excessive violent content and make repeated and credible threats against innocent members of the public.

same here - I expected him to be someone in the first throes of a highly unusual and untreated psychotic episode (I’m well aware that most people experiencing psychosis are harmless, but there are exceptions). Which would have been just as awful for the families, but also desperately sad for him - doing something that terrible, then receiving treatment, becoming lucid, and realising what you’d done doesn’t bear thinking about. But as it turns out he’s just a cowardly (probably misogynistic) loser. Pathetic.

Appreciate your post @SuperCaneloniMouse

@Dylanxoxo , I believe some people are evil. He’s been causing problems for many years. Our justice system doesn’t have the appropriate punishment for him. You can’t fix evil.

He's one of the worst psychopaths to have ever lived in this country alongside Fred West and Ian Brady. That's all there is to it.

He demanded to be let out of the court room sand according to BBC "caused a disturbance" while the victims read out their statements.

Evil is too easy an explanation. It gets us off the hook as a society. It lets him off because he’s just evil. Certainly wasn’t in his right mind to do what he did. Personality disorder, psychopathic, along with elements of his autism, obsession with extreme violence and death. Something that would help is to fund CAHMS better, school pastoral services, social services with trained adolescent social workers, institutions to place dangerous adolescents like him where they receive appropriate therapy/treatment (although we well know PD are v difficult to treat). Hell, even more police to actually do their job. Trouble is we’ve voted in parties who don’t want to spend money on these things, when the shit hits the fan, well…
I do agree that his parents are fully responsible for allowing him to fester in his room plotting all this. Agree with much of what you say really apart from the ‘evil’ description.

He rang Childline to ask whether they could help someone who wanted to kill. Think he was about 13/14 at this point.

Yes to this.

We all experience difficulties, some more than others but how we respond to these challenges and hurts including potentially racism is based on our personality, values, temper, morals and upbringing. As human we can chose our behaviour and not to retaliate. Interestingly, that coming from a devout Christian family AR certainly wasn't one for "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control". AR's parents allegedly frequented a non denominational church. Their church says “To prevent unnecessary intrusion into other churches in our town, we can confirm that over the last few years Alphonse Rudakubana has been a valued part of The Community Church family.” and also “For the sake of clarity, Alphonse’s son and family never attended our Sunday gatherings, nor played any active part in church life."

Both AR and his brother are autistic and and it's possible that their parents or one of them is also neuro divergent. This would have caused additional challenges for the whole family.

I reckon he was the bully.

He may have been exposed to racist comments, many of us and our children are on a near daily basis.

99.99% of us who have experienced racial abuse don't seek to kill in retaliation.

That's where family comes in. What did his family do to support their autistic son? What coping strategies did they offer him? Wanting to actually kill someone who gives you a hard time in school and actually look for support to do these killings is depraved. The question is what made him the depraved person he is.

The mask wearing and attention seeking drama lama behaviour in court is too pathetic. He wants to be in control at all and any cost, even killing others. That seems to be his nature.

He may believe he was being racially abused. The much younger child he almost killed in an unprovoked attack with a baseball bat had not racially abused him, he had no idea who Axel even was.

Was it mistaken identity, paranoia, or a convenient excuse? Nobody knows. My money is on it being an excuse that he knew would get him more lenient treatment, he seems like a highly manipulative individual.

He pleaded guilty. Who knows what he would have put forward had he not done so. No evidence is heard.

The more you learn about this boy the more you wonder why no one did anything to remove his liberty. Was that the video footage of him attacking another student and the other pupils intervening ?
I listened to James O’brien last week and a caller talked about a young relative who strangled some pet chicks (he was ND apparently) and worried that there was no overriding authority that wanted to do anything to help him.

What, and it’s normal that one person would know three such young people, all from separate families?

The much younger child he almost killed in an unprovoked attack with a baseball bat had not racially abused him, he had no idea who Axel even was.

Was it mistaken identity, paranoia, or a convenient excuse? Nobody knows. My money is on it being an excuse that he knew would get him more lenient treatment, he seems like a highly manipulative individual.

@Saschka I agree with your post

Yes there's something wrong with him, he's evil. I truly hope we soon hear the news that he's dead. The sooner he no longer exists the better.

I honestly despair. So the overriding opinion is that mental illness is not an excuse for what he did and he's just evil. What experts we all are. I don't know and no-one else here knows whether he is or not, but if he is, it absolutely could be a reason for it, and doesn't make him evil.

While the vast majority of mentally unwell people (like me) are more at risk than pose a risk, mental illness can still be a reason why people do terrible things to others. It doesn't help our understanding and treatment of mentally unwell people to deny that
.
Equally, how, and if, you judge people's actions while mentally ill, must be different to how you'd judge the same actions by a well person. You don't judge someone's ability to walk with a broken leg the same as someone with two fit legs, so why do you judge the actions of a paranoid schizophrenic the same as a mentally well person?

That's not to say that society doesn't need to be protected from the risk a small minority of mentally ill pose but blame the condition, not the person.

Also, it's a well-worn trope in crime dramas, but just because someone has made plans, and took multiple steps to complete some atrocious crime, doesn't mean he can't be mentally ill.

Finally, we don't make society safer by putting punishment above all else and shouting "evil!". It doesn't help us prevent further deaths, it doesn't help us encourage people at the early stages of mental illness to seek help, it doesn't help society spot (accurately) the early signs of risk behaviour and source and supply preventative support, it just fulfils our anger and need for vengeance.

Yes, he might be a terrible person, and deserve every punishment he receives, or he might be significantly mentally unwell, with a perfect storm of life events and experiences that have coalesced to create trigger the terrible actions he committed. None of us know, but calling him evil and thinking no more about it, and putting a need for vengeance above a need to understand, won't save future children.

I answered on the thread earlier about this.

Not guilty by means of insanity is an incredibly hard defence to prove and is exceptionally rare.
They must not know the nature of what they were doing or that this was wrong.
Even if someone killed someone else believing they were a demon then they would not be able to achieve this defence as they still knew killing was wrong. A successful use of this defence was a mum with psychosis who set her daughter alight genuinely believing she was reincarnating her and that she wasn't causing any pain or harm. Even if found not guilty it's likely the person would be in secure hospital for a long time, but on a civil rather than criminal section with leave and discharge decided on by a doctor.

Manslaughter by means of diminished responsibility is a much easier defence, and generally where the perpetrator has a pre-existing mental health condition the defence will argue for this. Even in one case I know where the criminal justice system was pushing for a murder conviction, the trial fell apart as the evidence given made it evident to the judge that the threshold for murder was not met.
For this defence, you need to prove that you were suffering from mental disorder which impaired your judgement, control, and ability to form a rational decision. It's not actually a very difficult defence to achieve if you are genuinely mentally unwell.You will be sentenced to a hospital order - a criminal section- or a hybrid order if there is a higher level of culpability where you go to prison after hospital.

That is why I am satisfied entirely that this man had no mental disorder. If there was a shred of evidence of this the defence would have gone for diminished responsibility. He was examined by a forensic psychiatrist and the report was clear- there was no influence on this actions by either his autism or any other mental disorder. The defence offered no other contradicting examination.

I am finding this thread a bit infuriating really. You can question human nature, the brain, and the atrocities man has committed since the beginning of time but that doesn't make it the job of the NHS to lock up people with antisocial traits who may offend.

Equally, how, and if, you judge people's actions while mentally ill, must be different to how you'd judge the same actions by a well person. You don't judge someone's ability to walk with a broken leg the same as someone with two fit legs, so why do you judge the actions of a paranoid schizophrenic the same as a mentally well person? it is treated differently because it is different.

Someone who has broken both legs isn’t a danger or a threat to anyone else.

Whereas someone with certain mental illnesses has the potential to be. There’s no pint pretending that it’s not the case. And because of that while to the person with paranoid schizophrenia it is hard to accept, to the people who could be at risk it’s not unreasonable to question whether they are at risk in the presence of such a person.

I agree it isn’t the NHS’s job to lock up every potentially violent person in the country.

I think it is worthwhile to have the conversation about whether it should be anybody’s responsibility to intervene when there are warning signs like this - currently it is nobody’s responsibility, and if is worth discussing whether the bar needs to be moved on this. It can’t be right that everybody knows somebody is going to carry out an atrocity but nobody can do anything until they actually do.

(in this particular instance I do think there were police failures - attacking a child with a baseball bat and taking a knife to school/being caught by the police on a bus with a knife are already pretty serious crimes, so why wasn’t he charged?)

The disorders most associated with violence are personality disorders, alcohol and substance use, and learning disability.

You are better off avoiding pubs and clubs than avoiding schizophrenic people if you want to avoid being a victim of a violent crime.

Nah, as soon as another prisoner gets hold of him it will be curtains.

@User8646382 for context one of the mums I was extremely close to and I met the other two families through her as obviously parents will reach out/find each other through support groups when they are in extremis.The county I live in doesn't have 100s of extremely violent children walking around. It is, thankfully very rare.
We had a large mental hospital where I live-1600 patients. It shut down in the mid 90s. The children's wing had 200 children. The vast majority were there with severe learning difficulties and were expected to grow old there. Others were there short term to get the right treatment for psychosis/schizophrenia. But at any given point there were up to 20 children who were there because they were violent. Too dangerous to be at home or anywhere else. "Childhood insanity" they called it which covered a breadth of E&B disorders.